Mark Hughes denied his players took Bristol City too lightly after crashing out of the League Cup embarrassingly at Ashton Gate last night.

The Stoke City boss insisted his players had been prepared and wasn’t using six changes to his Premier League line up as an excuse for their 2-0 exit.

Asked if his players had been complacent, Hughes said: “I’m not sure about that. Maybe they weren’t well enough aware of the capabilities of Bristol City, but they were told on numerous occasions they were going up against a team going well.

“We had to be ready. Some were, some weren’t. If you don’t get the fundamentals right, you’re going to struggle.”

“We are disappointed because we weren’t able to produce a performance to go through to the next round.”

Read More

Stoke showed half-a-dozen changes last night, but that was no excuse as Bristol City showed nine from their Championship victory over Derby on Saturday.

Stoke could only feel hard done by after events just before half-time when a flurry of chances saw them rattle the cross bar and have two efforts blocked on the line in the same goalmouth scramble.

Matty Taylor scores Bristol City's second goal (Image: Getty)

That apart, however, it was largely Bristol City, eighth in the Championship, forcing the pace and deserving their place in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

Their fate was effectively sealed by Bristol’s 50 minute opener from their Senegal striker Famara Diedhiou followed by a second 11 minutes later by Matty Taylor.

Hughes continued: “It was a poor performance from our point of view. Credit to Bristol. I thought they were energetic, good in possession and quite clearly they had a game plan they executed better than we did.

“We made a few changes, but not wholesale. We still had the back three from the weekend for a defensive platform.

“Both individually and collectively we didn’t defend well enough and the goals were evidence of that.

Read More

“If we are being honest, and we have an honest bunch, we didn’t play well enough. We need to be a lot better.

“We had chances before half-time and you have to take your chances when you aren’t playing well.”

Stoke now face the daunting task of hosting Premier League champions Chelsea at the bet365 on Saturday after losing at Newcastle and being dumped out of the League Cup, but a defiant Hughes is promising much better from his players.

“I know for a fact we will be better than tonight,” he insisted, “but it doesn’t give me any comfort because this was a competition we wanted to progress in.

“We need to be more consistent. We weren’t quite right on the night and we paid the price. We will be a lot better at the weekend, but that doesn’t console me now.”

Hughes must now hope skipper Ryan Shawcross returns to training before the end of the week to prove his fitness against Chelsea on Saturday when Kurt Zouma will be ineligible against his parent club.